Mr. Reynolds indeed contemplated, it is believed, a subterranean tram road from the banks of the Severn right up into the heart of the iron districts of Ketley and Donnington Wood, upon which his engine was to travel, but the prejudice against the scheme was so great, and the jury empanelled to inquire into the nature of the accident inflicted such an enormous fine to be enforced every time the engine was used, that it was abandoned. There are also a pair of partially rotatory brass cylinders in existence which Mr. Reynolds intended as models for a boat on the Severn. This was before Shropshire generally, and the iron districts more particularly, had begun to participate in the advantages of still-water communication. With the superior advantages of railways, it is difficult to appreciate the full benefit of such communication for manufacturing and agricultural purposes at that time in inland counties like our own. Mr. Reynolds however, with full faith in the future development of the powers of steam by means of improved machinery, took great pains to extend and perfect canal navigation, and his name is associated with every important work of improvement in the district during the latter end of the last and the beginning of the present centuries, and especially with a very ingenious contrivance by means of which the inequalities of surface were overcome, and the old-fashioned locks were dispensed with. Mr. Reynolds commenced his canal for the conveyance of minerals from Oakengates and Ketley in 1788; and shortly after its completion an Act of Parliament was obtained for one from Donnington Wood which, forming a junction therewith, was to proceed along the high ground above Coalbrookdale, on one hand, and Madeley and Coalport on the other. The difference of level was 73 feet in one case and 207 feet in the other. Telford, speaking of the difficulties to be encountered from the nature of the country, says: